According to media outlets in Spain, police suspect 3 of infiltrating an NGO that helps asylum seekers, sending information to Iran.

The Spanish police arrested three people in Madrid and Torrelavega on suspicion
of involvement in a network spying on dissidents of the Iranian regime, the
Spanish media reported on Friday.

According to a press release from the
Spanish police cited by media outlets, the suspects allegedly infiltrated a
Spanish NGO that aids asylum-seekers, and communicated to the Iranian secret
services the identities of people who fled the country for ideological reasons.
The police suspected the three of violating the confidentiality of data and
information of Iranians who fled the Islamic Republic and expressed interest in
seeking asylum in Spain.

The police reportedly believed the three to be
members of a spy network allegedly controlled by the Iranian intelligence
services from the seat of its own embassy in Madrid.

The aim of the
network was allegedly to monitor, pursue and even threaten countrymen living in
Spain, considered to be dissidents of the Iranian regime.

Spanish
newspaper El Mundo reported that a Spanish citizen working for an NGO in
Torrelavega recommended that a specific interpreter aid the asylum-seekers, but
that interpreter was in fact a spy who passed along personal information of all
those that he had helped.

The three people detained in Madrid include the
NGO’s legal adviser, the interpreter and an embassy employee.